I have read so many of David Mitchell’s books, (I’m currently reading Thousand Autumns)and I always noticed the mention of the moon gray cat but I can’t figure out for the life of me what that might represent or why it appears in so many of the different stories… anyone have any theories/info on that dang cat?

Greetings.

I have read Ghostwritten, number9dreams, Cloud Atlas and Slade House. I've been eyeing up TBC but I do know it has tie-ins to BSG and TTAoJdZ. Should I read both books before TBC or is it standalone?

I haven’t seen this mentioned here before: Season 2 episode 5 of the series Pachinko (Apple TV+) was written by David Mitchell. It seems he is also an executive producer on the second season.

This is a great drama about different generations of Koreans living in Japan.

I’d prefer a new novel, but I’ll take what I can get.

Tomorrow, 26th October 2024, is Slade House day (last Saturday of October, every 9 years, last appearance 2015...) So, you know, don't go down any mysterious alleyways. And look out for dead grey cats and all that.

😁

Upon getting halfway through The Bone Clocks I realized that His Serendipity's/Arupadhatu's japanese cult stuff with alpha quotients and alpha shielding was probably a real form of psychosoterica. My interpretation is that this particular atemporal just enjoyed fucking with people and playing god as he made his followers bomb trains and drink his jizz which definitely isn't a necessary part of psychosoterica. I'm not sure whether Arupadhatu was a carnivore or vegetarian, and if the mongolian noncorpum was a returnee or sojourner.

Also how did the mongolian know about the zookeeper back in ancient china??

Are all atemporals created via interrupted Buddhist transmigration rituals?

This isn't made clear so I was wondering what other people thought.

I’ve just finished The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. Absolutely loved it. the first Mitchell book I read was Utopia. Was hooked immediately. I then proceeded, in written order, with Ghostwritten. I have Bone Clocks on deck. Can’t wait. Is there something I’m missing where I’m seeing the book referred to as the 10 Thousand autumns or is it just the fact that so many other people aren’t getting it right? Also planning on reading UA again after Slade House.

I’m just on my yearly spooky season re-read of Slade House and just realized that this October, if it still existed, Slade House would be open! Everybody in London near the Fox and Hounds better be on guard!

Which one though?

I’ve just finished reading The bone clocks and, whilst I enjoyed it, it was my least favourite of the four David Mitchell books I’ve read. That’s not to say it was bad at all though!

In order of preference, I’ve read

• Number9dream
• Cloud Atlas
• Ghostwritten
• The Bone Clocks

Which David Mitchell book should be next on my list?

I’m trying to put the short stories of David Mitchell in an order that feels like a natural progression for re-reading. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

• In the Bike Sheds
• By Misadventure
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Muggins Here
• Judith Castle
• The Massive Rat
• Character Development
• Earth Calling Taylor
• An Inside Job
• All Souls Day
• Dénouement
• Variations on a Theme by Mister Donut
• What You Do Not Know You Want
• A Forgettable Story
• The Gardener
• Lots of Bits of Star
• My Eye on You
• If Wishes Was Horses
• U-Turn if You Want To
• Repeats
• The Siphoners

Notes

It starts off with a Black Swan Green Cycle (from Bike Sheds to Dénouement) that I believe is in somewhat chronological order, Bike Sheds and Misadventure taking place long before the others. Preface mentions Clive Pike before the next 2 stories (the beginning of Clive’s arc). Character Development ties to the next 2 stories. Finally, the Clive Pike/Mr. Nixon arc ends with All Souls and Dénouement.

Next I have 3 seemingly standalones, but I ramp up the supernatural with A Forgettable Story to link in tone to The Gardener and Lots of Bits which are linked.

Next My Eye On You may link to If Wishes Was Horses before the standalone U-Turn.

I end the main narrative with Repeats before the dystopian Siphoners serves as a sort of epilogue.

I’m considering opening with Repeats for 2 reasons:

1. [Spoilers] >!The ending has someone going back to watch their life again just as the reader is about to read all these stories. !<[Spoilers]
2. I’m not thrilled with Bike Sheds as an opener.

One more note: This list only contains traditional short stories. I have not included Sunken Garden or the Twitter stories. I enjoy all of those but feel they break the flow of this collection.

I’m curious as to anyone’s thoughts or alternate suggestions.

Thanks to FormalDinner7 for all the thoughtful commentary that got me this far.

Just finished watching CLOUD ATLAS at 20: in conversation with David Mitchell. Towards the end, Taner Kemirtlek asked my question about the new novel. David said he had just asked for an extension and it will be out by the end of next year.

I had a weird dream last night that David Mitchell wrote a Cloud Atlas sequel. I was really excited about it but in the dream I never managed to read the book.

If he wrote one, what would you want to be in it?

I've been reading through Chronological Timeline? thread (and loving the breakdown). At the same time I've been trying to guess at a reading order for some the short stories by looking for connections using this resource. I've got the following at the end of my list based on date:
If Wishes Was Horses 2020 U-Turn if You Want To 2022
The Siphoners 2033

Also, I think What You Do Not Know You Want takes place in 1998

I've also got a few grouped by connected characters:

Acknowledgements/Preface/Muggins Here/Denouement

Character Development/Earth Calling Taylor/By Misadventure

The Gardener/Lots of Bits of Star

Has anyone done any work looking at the chronology and/or connections of short stories?

I made it my mission early this year to finally read through all of Mitchell's work, and up until Thousand Autumns I was doing great (for me - I'm not an amazingly fast reader - I tend to miss things if I try to read too quick) but jeez, I've been stuck in this one since April! I won't give up, that's not how I'm wired (which is probably why it's taking me so long - I'm starting to resent it for stopping me achieving my goal!) and I've only got Utopia Avenue to go but wow, I didn't expect it to turn into such a mammoth task. Anyway, rant over.

HI again. I know David Mitchell's short story Mongolia appears in New Writing: Vol 8 and I'm thinking about ordering a copy. I'm just wondering if anyone knows if it differs at all from the chapter in Ghostwritten. I know stories like January Man are very different than the versions that end up in the published novels and I'm wondering if the same is true for this short story.

Hi everyone. I'm a new fan of David Mitchell and I've spent the past couple of weeks scouring the web for a collection of his short stories. I've managed to find most of them but 2 stories that were previously available online are eluding me:

In The Bike Sheds

and

I_Bombadil

There's a few others I'm missing that are early versions of released chapters but these two I'd really like to find. Does anyone know of places where these stories are still available. Thanks in advance.

I was at David's talk at the Southbank Centre in London yesterday evening, and a member of the audience asked about his next book in the Q&A segment. He answered that it was due out 2025, and that it would (paraphrasing) return to the "is it a novel or isn't it?" question of Cloud Atlas, and that it may involve some of his old short stories having a second life.

Browsing through the short stories I found this one. Does anyone know if this is the full story as it appears in the book or if it is only the beginning?
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/books/1st-chapter-book-of-other-people.html

I randomly picked up Black Swan Green and simply adored it. From what I can gather, Mitchell has a whole universe and I want in!

I've seen a couple posts on where to start/chronological order/etc. but I'm trying hard to avoid spoilers or details on his world. Having read BSG, where do you think I should go next? I don't expect all his books to be like BSG and do read some sci-fi & fantasy on occasion so I'm not afraid of that aspect of it.

Finished it last night (loved the book). But I'm unsure what to make of the ending. I thought it was supposed to be Quasar's gas attack, the one mentioned at the beginning, but I'm thrown off by the number of references to the previous chapters. Is he hallucinating it? Does it take place after the New York section? Is it mostly thematic and shouldn't be read as strictly literal? I'm unsure. Appreciate any thoughts you all might have.

Hi folks, new Mitchell reader here, (so no spoilers please!) just wondering why I waited so long to start reading?! I've had Slade House on my kindle since January '21, bought on a whim when it was a daily deal, 99p job. Before I got round to reading it I read somewhere that I should read The Bone Clocks before Slade House so I waited. In the meantime I've collected all but BSG & Thousand Autumns as they've come up on daily deals. All the while, the multitude of opinions on reading order etc. Has intimidated me out of starting any of them. Until a couple of weeks ago when I just bit the bullet and read and thoroughly enjoyed Ghostwritten. I'm currently ploughing through The Bone Clocks and intend on reading Slade House next. No idea what I'll read after that though, but judging by what little I've read so far, I don't think I'll be disappointed with any that I currently own. Any suggestions for the rest of my path through Mitchell's Universe welcome 😁

I'm almost done with my current (3rd?) reading of Ghostwritten and stumbled across something in the Night Train section that I think is purposeful and certainly, at least to me, interesting.

Way back when I was in high school, Roger Waters (member of Pink Floyd) released a solo album called "Radio K.A.O.S.," (1987) which is a sort of musical drama centered around a DJ call-in show and a caller named "Billy, a mentally and physically disabled man from Wales...who has the ability to hear radio waves throughout all frequencies without aid." (See Wikipedia for greater detail).

Anyway, Billy eventually hacks into a military satellite and tricks the world into thinking nuclear ICBM's are about to hit all the world's big cities, which makes everyone rethink their attitudes towards everyone else and ushers in (hopefully) peace.

I'd really forgotten the album until earlier this last year (2023) I was painting the inside of my house, remembered how much I'd liked the album, and decided to listen to it through a few times.

Jump to today, I got to the part in Ghostwritten (p. 396 in my paperback AND my hardback versions) where Bat says, "...because I last got a call from your mother being rerouted by the evacuation police to Omaha or MOOSEJAW or the ends of the earth." This reminded me of a line from Radio K.A.O.S. in the song, "Home," which says, "Could be Lianelli, and it could be Warrington. Could be Warsaw and it could be MOOSEJAW. Could be Rome...Everybody got somewhere they call home."

Anyway, I'm just wondering if David Mitchell is a fan of Roger Waters and is giving Homage to Radio K.A.O.S. in this story.

Finally...I love Mr. Mitchell's work...I've read them all several times, always look in used bookstores for signed copies or 1st editions, give away copies to fellow readers (always "The Thousand Autumns" first), and have turned my niece into a true Mitchell fan as well (she's just finishing "Bone Clocks" and I can't wait till she gets to the end!).

God bless you, David, if you ever happen to read this, and Thank You! from the bottom of my heart for hours upon hours of joy. Keep up the good work!!!

EDIT to add... P. 400, "So, you been busy holding down the reptile house as usual while the DOGS OF WAR file their fangs?" Song 5 of Radio K.A.O.S. is "THE DOGS OF WAR."

What noncorpora do we meet in this book?

Okinawa - His Serendipity (although, I rather thought he was a fake) Tokyo -? Hong Kong - The ghost girl in Ned's apartment Holy Mountain - the Mongolian/holy tree Mongolia - the Mongolian again, possibly also the shaman? Petersburg? London - Alfred's doppelganger Clear Island -? Night Train - zookeeper, guru aruphadatu (do we meet Aruphadatu elsewhere in the book?) Underground -?

Also, why does the tree by the Tea Shack have so many different fruit?

My copy of Ghostwritten has this weird rune? In place of the letters "fi" here and in at least one other place. Is this a misprint or deliberate?

Page 75

Can anyone help me figure out what I'm missing?

I'm halfway through my second read of Cloud Atlas. I read it for the first time back in 2010ish. I just read The Bone Clocks and Slade House, so I decided to go back and reread Cloud Atlas, thinking I might get even more out of it my second time around.

Buuuuuut I'm a little lost. I understand that there are these nesting-doll layers of short stories, with one central character that reappears in every story - signified by a shared birthmark - representative of their various lives. Each story also has the common thread of narratives being handed down - through diaries, letters, prisons, etc - but otherwise, the stories are mostly self-contained.

Two questions.

1. Am I correct so far, in my outline above? Am I understanding correctly?
2. Is......that it? I'm wondering if there's another layer I'm missing somewhere. Aside from the shared character and hand-me-down narratives, I'm struggling to find a common link or theme between the stories. Something that ties everything together and gives the entire novel a cohesive sense of meaning and purpose.

Each of these stories are well written and I can appreciate the prose on a story-by-story level - in particular, I'm in awe of the attention to detail Mitchell put into creating the unique dialect of Big Island. But in the absence of an overarching theme, I'm really struggling to care about the individual stories and their characters, AND I'm frustrated because I feel like I'm missing something 😭 Please help me?! What ties this world together?!

***Spoilers for Slade House, Bone Clocks and Utopia Avenue

Do you think that Norah poses a real threat to Marinus and the rest of Horology?

At the end of Slade House in 2015, we know that Norah inhabits a baby and vows to take her revenge.

What happened in Utopia Avenue with Knock Knock and Jasper gives us a good idea of how vengeful the Anchorites can be.

However, we also know that Marinus makes it to at least 2043 at the end of Bone Clocks unharmed and the Prescience think tank he sets up goes all the way to the far future in Cloud Atlas.

Does Norah even survive the Endarkenment? Curious to see if she'll become a recurring character in the next Marinus entry!

Hello all,

I'm in Canada, using the USA version of audiobook services on both Audible and Spotify, and I've noticed that a number of Mitchell's works aren't available in my region. Namely, Slade House, Utopia, and Cloud Atlas aren't available. I know some are, however, because I just finished listening to The Bone Clocks on Audible.

Has anyone encountered this issue? If you've been successful getting these books on audio, what service did you use, and what region are you in?